Soothing an Empath
by PatientNumberZero
Summary: The house is empty except for Jasper and Carlisle, so why not trying to find a calm haven in all the turmoil which is their usual life?


I had heard footsteps coming towards my office door, but whoever it was remained silent in front of it. I could only guess that it was Jasper. My "children" had very different ways of coming into my office when they needed something.

Emmett would often just barge in without knocking, while Alice had the habit to knock, but seldomly wait for an aswer. Instead, she'd open the door a bit and peek in. Edward mostly knocked and tapped his foot impatiently on the floor until I told him to come in. Jasper used to stand in front of my door, trying to determine through my emotions if I was up to talking to him or not.

Deciding to make it easier for him, I called: "You can come in, Jasper."

Hesistantly, the door was opened and Jasper stood in the doorway. He looked reluctantly up to me and if he had been human, he'd have blushed.

"What can I do for you? Is there anything you need?", he fixed his eyes to the floor and shook his head no. In a soft voice, he said: "I just wanted to ask, if... uh, well, if it'd bother you when I stayed for a while? I mean... here, in your office."

I was confused about his request, but I could see no reason to tell him off.

"Sure, if you'd like to.", I knew that he wasn't going to disturb me. With a quiet 'thank you', he went over to the little couch and laid down on it, staring up at the ceiling. His request was unusal, since he often prefered to be left alone. Alice was the only one allowed to be around all the time.

Still, his willingness to hang around us had improved over the years. In the beginning, he'd go up to his room or leave the house as often as possible. Now, he enjoyed hanging out with the others. Be it teasing Edward, wrestling with Emmett or just talking to Rosalie.

Yet sometimes he'd favor the silence of his room. I could understand him. With all the emotions in the house, it couldn't be easy.

I glanced over to him. He lay on the couch, one arm over his eyes, the other hanging loosely to the floor. His breathing was even and he seemed totally relaxed, completely at ease. His eyes were closed and every human would have thought him to be sleeping.

I smiled at the sight. It was rare to catch him in such a moment. I should have probably stoped the staring, but I liked to observe my children. Especially when they didn't know they were being watched. It was a bad habbit, I admit it, but it often showed me a side of them or gave me the chance to catch a moment I would have missed otherwise.

Raising his arm and turning his head slightly to the side, his eyes met mine. I gave him a smile and looked at my paperwork again, a bit embarrassed that he had noticed. A wave of calm came over me which made me chuckle. I looked at him again and saw him smile back at me.

"I like your emotions, y'know. They are calm. It's... nice to have at least one person in the house who doesn't feel the need to strangle the others.", he was still smiling, but I sensed the sincerity behind his words. It was one of **those **days.

Earlier, Edward and Emmett had been fighting over some triviality. In the progress of this squabble, they had managed to break something which belonged to Rose. She had yelled at them for quite an amount of time and now denied Emmett any kind of physically contact. Esme and Alice had then suggested to just buy a new thing of whatever they had destroyed. In the end, they had left alone. Long story short: Rosalie was angry at Emmett and Edward, Emmett was angry at Edward and Edward was angry at Rosalie. Sometimes it was an endless cycle with those three.

I focused back onto the present and sighed softly. "I really don't mind you being here, Jasper. You can come more often, if you'd like to.", he nodded slightly.

I knew that he sometimes seeked a save harbour to shelter himslef from too much emotional input. Until now, he had stayed with Alice or Esme at those times, but I was more than willing to help him if need be. I had wanted to spend more time with him, anyway.

Truly, it was not like it would be any different with him here. When he decided to stick to my wife for a while, he usually just stayed in the same room with her. If she decided to go to another room, so would he, following her arround and occasionally asking if he could help her with something. If she said no, he sat down and kept to himself. He wasn't one to make conversation. Esme had once compared it with having a calming, helpful shadow.

I guess she was right. Since he had entered roughly half an hour ago, he had uttered one sentence. Otherwise, he lay unmoving on the couch. Happy with just being here.

And again, I couldn't help but notice how different his behaviour was from what his siblings did. Not one of them was able to sit still for a longer time period. They'd all start sighing, humming, cracking their knuckles or tapping their fingers. It didn't bother me, but it could get distracting when you tried to work, even for a vampire.

The next hours went by without anyone feeling the need of filling the silence with words. Just as the skye begann to get dark and the first stars made their existence known, I heard the car making it's way up to hour house. In a heartbeat, Jasper was on his feet and almost out of the door, no doubt to greet his wife and mother back and help them with the result of their shopping. But in the doorway, he stopped and, without really turning to face me, mumbled: "Thank you, for letting me stay."  
There was more to his words than just the happenings of this evening. I chuckled and told him: "You are always welcome, you know this, son." I could practically feel the smile that formed on his lips and the happiness radiated off of him as he raced down the stairs towards the car. I guess I'll never know if that steemed from my words or just from the fact that Alice was back. Either way, it was good to see him content.

When I could finally hear the voice of my beautiful Esme, I rose from my desk and made my way down the stairs myself. Maybe the night would be better than the morning, the afternoon had definitely been.


End file.
